Hajime Sugiyama

Hajime Sugiyama (1 January 1880-12 September 1945) was Minister of War of Japan from February 1937 to June 1938, succeeding Kotaro Nakamura and preceding Seishiro Itagaki, and from July 1944 to April 1945, succeeding Hideki Tojo and preceding Korechika Anami.

Biography
Hajime Sugiyama was born on 1 January 1880 in Kokura, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, and in 1901 he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy as a lieutenant. He served in the Russo-Japanese War, and in 1910 he graduated from the Army Staff College. In 1918, Sugiyama was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and commander of the Japanese 2nd Air Battalion after observing the Imperial German Air Force during World War I, and in 1925 he was promoted to Major-General. In February 1937 he was appointed Minister of War, and in December 1938 he took command of the North China Area Army and the Mongolia Garrison Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1940, he succeeded Kanin Kotohito as Chief of the General Staff of the IJA, and he lobbied for war with the United States in World War II; however, in 1944 he was dismissed as Chief of the General Staff as the fronts collapsed on all sides. On 12 September 1945, Sugiyama shot himself four times in the chest with a revolver at his desk after dissolving the IJA, and his wife also killed herself.